I was attracted to the basic concept of this book: an analytic approach to cooking that includes the whys and wherefores, not just the whats. But, for the record, I would like to clarify that as a software engineer I would call myself a “nerd” rather than a “geek”. The word “nerd” derives from the word “drink” spelled backwards. The nerds were the ones who stayed back at the dorm and studied while everyone else went out and got hammered. Geeks, on the other hand, have no special technical or intellectual gifts. They’re just inept – socially and physically uncoordinated, messing up even the simplest tasks.

The first two chapters of this book are targeted towards geeks – people who have never stepped foot inside a kitchen and don’t have any concept of nutrition. The author uses programming code as metaphors for basic cooking concepts. Now who could possibly be this in-the-dark about cooking, and find computer code enlightening as metaphor? They would have to be male. No girl grows up without any exposure to the kitchen. So the target audience is apparently the stereotypical male programmer sitting behind a keyboard 18 hours a day living on pizza and soda pop. I thought these were creatures of the 1980s and now extinct – either dead from the all-pizza diet or evolved into healthier eating, while younger programmers were not spoiled by homemaker mothers into total kitchen ignorance. Perhaps I’m wrong. Are you still out there??

The book gets much better after the first two chapters, which – in the author’s defense – he does say you can skip if you are experienced in the kitchen.